Life Skills & English Language Coach @ BICS | Public Speaking-CRM-Placement Expert | Pep Talker | Corporate Trainer. E-mail: [email protected]
Intro
In the modern world with the fast and easy modes of communication like chatting or whatsapping telegramming, through gadgets like a cell phone many of us have been facing an issue on the weird use of grammar, structure and vocabulary alike. How we can escape from this failure, thereby, communicate properly? So here I am going to deal with the importance of keeping the ABC in Writing Skills. ABC here means; Accuracy, Brevity, and Clarity in our writing attempt.
As we all know Speaking Skills and Writing Skills are the two major tools through which we are connecting to people. Among the 4 language skills LSRW (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) and they are known as Expressive Skills because we express our ideas outputs through them. (Listening and Reading are the Receptive Skills, by them, we receive information or inputs.)
Though Speaking and Writing skills are the two essential communication tools for connecting people, they are significantly different in their attributes as well as execution.
Speaking Vs Writing
In speaking, along with Verbal Cues (VC) words are complimented or contributed by the Non-Verbal Cues (NVC) such as body language and tone of voice: the two basic divisions of NVC to serve the desired purpose of communication. Whereas, in Writing, we are limited to take the support of VC such as words, graphs, and charts alone.
Most of the time in speaking we are also well supported by other factors including our physical presence with the help of NVC. We can also sort help from the initial or immediate onstage feedback to better our communication. Here, we even can take an instantaneous decision to rely on further explanation, add an anecdote or story, cut short or stop the conversation at any point of our communication. 
The role of VC is very less. According to the Mehrabian findings on Speaking Skills, the Body Language plays 55% role in a conversation; Tone of Voice 38% and the Verbal Cues play 7% only in a normal context.
As per the situation, person, culture or the influence and intervention of the modern technological devices this can be varied. The words are lifeless entities by their nature but transformed as meaningful information by the apt use of NVC. One point is very much clear here that the VC is not more than its counterpart the NVC. Otherwise here the purpose of communication could not be served.
Another fundamental in Speaking is the role of grammar. Indeed, the Speaking structures are different from the Writing structures. They are free from the rigid rules of grammar. It supports the Mehrabian research findings as well. If we try to adopt the Writing structures into our conversations, that will become mechanical and thereby boring too, a challenge before the second language users, at least in the case of the majority of the English speaker’s in the non-native speaker’s of English like India.
Writing Alone
Whereas in the writing communication, there is no chance to use NVC. The sender is restricted to use VC 100% which includes the graphs and charts. Though in some context we can use pictures too, in general, we are forced to play with and around the words here. The message is also going to be read by the other end with the absence of the sender.
To convert all the thoughts, feelings and emotions into communicable information flawlessly but effectively through the use of lifeless words is a real challenge before the writer. Here the author needs a structure and system for doing that. The absence of onstage feedback will intensify the issue though there are chatting and texting are very common nowadays. In this context, the writing communication demands the right care on grammar, apt vocabulary and clear structure in every piece of writing always.
Conclusion
When we are trying to maintain the Accuracy, Brevity, and Clarity- the ABC of Writing Skills in the fast moving world we are helping ourselves to save the time and serving the intended purposes of our communication. So let us keep the ABC in writing.
